Defense of the Ancients is the original map that created the "Action RTS" (ARTS) genre. It started as a map modification in Warcraft III and is now being made into it's own game with Valve using the Source engine. In short, it's a session based, Player vs. Player RPG. Ten people play on two teams of five and each person controls a hero of various ability, utility and strength. As you play in a game your hero will level up, you will gain gold, you'll kill opposing heroes and buy items to become stronger. The ultimate objective is to kill the enemies main structure in the back of their base. This takes teamwork and coordination, not something you can do by yourself as the base is also protected by AI controlled creeps that constantly spawn to defend it and towers meant to hold you back. Matches take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and when you're finished and start a new game, you pick a new hero and start all over. Nothing is persistant when it comes to something that can affect each game. That sounds simple in description but what has kept people playing it for years now are the complexities of the game.

What is the history behind Defense of the Ancients?

Defense of the Ancients started out a long time ago as a map modification in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. It was originally started by someone who went by the name Eul back in 2003. DotA is actually based on an older map from StarCraft called Aeon of Strife. When Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne released, Eul never updated the map. Probably because he went to work for Valve on Half-Life 2 and every title since (see this interview).

Variants of the map were made to replace Eul's version but none really replaced it until Steve Feak, aka Guinsoo, made DotA Allstars. Guinsoo added more heroes, the recepie system for items, and Roshan (Which is named after his bowling ball? Huh.) with his Aeigs of Immortality. He held development of the map for two years and in that time also helped make a central hub for DotA players with Steve Mescon, aka Pendragon, at dota-allstars.com. The website is now debunk since Steve and Steve now work on League of Legends.

In 2005 Guinsoo handed off development to IceFrog, the most reclusive of the DotA developers. IceFrog turned DotA into the highly competitve map it is today. While he regularly updated the map, adding new heroes, items, and fixes over time, the only evidence that he was working on it was the fact that his name was branded on the loading screen. He even refused to do interviews. Eventually he opened up his own blog and then a website, playdota.com, to communicate better with players. PlayDotA is now the central hub for DotA. IceFrog's variation of the map is the most balanced and competitive. DotA didn't become an esport until this version. It's mind boggling to think how over 100 heroes on one map can be balanced to such a point but IceFrog did it and has been doing it for years now.

At some point Valve approached IceFrog with the proposal to make DotA into a full retail game. Robin Walker, Adrian Finol (Eul), and Erik Johnson were all fans of DotA and eventually started talking to IceFrog over e-mail using the fact that they were big game developers (lol). When IceFrog expressed the want to make a sequel that was free of the restrictions in the Warcraft III engine, Valve said "Hey, we've got a great idea! Why don't you come here?" Obviously he said yes.

So how can I play it?

You can't. Yet. Sorta. You can sign up for the beta. More and more people have been getting in every day. The selection is totally random at this point but if you're in the pool you still have a chance to get into the beta.

In the meantime, they also lifted the NDA. People in the beta can talk about it, post screenshots, and stream. If you want to watch some streams check Twitch.tv or own3d.tv. There is a website dedicated to streams for Dota 2, StreamDota2.com. You can also check Reddit's Dota 2 subreddit for news and screenshots and stuff like that. You can also watch all the matched from Valve's Dota 2 reveal tournament, The International. It's a spectacular series and shows off the game very well.

Coming from League of Legends? Read this.

Written by Zorus...

Like LoL, but a lot more unforgiving.

*Abilities don't scale with items, with the exception of a certain item increasing the damage on certain ultimates.
*There is no AD or AP as in LoL, just three attributes which give health/health regen, mana/mana regen, and attack speed/armor.
*Also there doesn't appear to be any sort of fixed metagame, unlike League with its standard bruiser top, caster mid, support/carry bot and jungler.
*Every hero uses mana as a resource.
*There is no combine cost for some items, but there are items called recipes which you must buy in order to complete certain items.
*CC is much more brutal, with fifteen second silences and five second stuns.
*You can control more than one unit, players control their own hero and a courier, and some heroes can summon units that they control. In League there's things like Tibbers, and Shaco clones, but to control those you can only hold alt and move the unit.
*Upon death, you lose gold. Killing a hero will not decrease their value. Bounties are pretty much the same thing, also exp reward from kills is much greater
*You can kill your own creeps when they are under 50% hp, only with autoattacks and certain skills, this is called denying and stops a hero from killing the creep for gold, while also decreasing the exp gain from the creep.
*Trees and elevation which can be used to advantage
*Day/Night system, some heroes get stronger during the night (and day?)
*A lot of mids gank, whereas in LoL mid normally doesn't gank/would gain more benefit from staying in lane
*LoL level cap is 18 and you can only level abilities, each ability can be levelled to 5. In Dota, level cap is 25, and you can add +2 to attributes as well as level abilities to 4 and ultimates to 3, not every hero only has 3 standard skills, also the hotkeys are different for each hero (however in Dota 2 the ability hotkeys are standard QWER with some heroes having more skills that extend to d and f)
*Certain heroes have more vision range than others.
*Wards last longer
*Neutral creeps do not give buffs, the equivalent to Baron drops an item which is the equivalent to Guardian Angel's passive, and also Cheese on third death
*Two runespots, runes are items that can be taken instantly, or bottled (with an item) to be used for later, runes can double damage, make two clones of your hero, (which take and deal less damage) stealth, increase movespeed, or regenerate hp and mana greatly
*Lane creeps give a lot more gold than in LoL
*Unit collision is more important
*Different types of shops, there's a unified base shop in Dota 2 but in Dota they were segmented, a secret shop in the jungle on both sides, and a sidelane shop
*To return to base you must either walk or purchase an item that allows you to teleport to allied structures, in other words, no global recall spell
*Towers deal less damage but fire faster, the last hit on a tower will reward extra gold, towers can be denied to the enemy team just as creeps can
*No runepages/summoner spells
*No bushes

and that's about it. I've played both games, switched to LoL for a long time and now I'm playing Dota 2. Some negligible things are that lane creeps are pretty damn big compared to hero units, and nomenclature of heroes isn't always standard. In LoL most heroes are called by name (Malzahar, the Prophet of the Void) whereas in Dota, you refer to a hero mostly by their occupation/title. Yurnero the Juggernaut, Krobelus the Death Prophet. Some exceptions like Zeus the Lord of Olympia or Rikimaru the Stealth Assassin.

Coming from Heroes of Newerth? Read this.

HoN has a very close relation to DotA, at least in it's early life. Over time its changed its but it still retains a lot of likeness and it the closest game to DotA between it and LoL. It does have it's differences thought. The HoN Wiki has a pages dedicated to what is the same and what is different between DotA and it. Check it here: http://honwiki.net/wiki/DotA_vs_HoN

guys do you have any tips for becoming extremely farmed up, every time I play with my friends I always have the lowest gold/exp per minute even though I try my hardest to get last hits and kill people.

guys do you have any tips for becoming extremely farmed up, every time I play with my friends I always have the lowest gold/exp per minute even though I try my hardest to get last hits and kill people.

Practice last hitting. Start a practice game, random a hero and try to see how many last hits you can get in 10 min. Do this a lot, with a variety of heroes.

guys do you have any tips for becoming extremely farmed up, every time I play with my friends I always have the lowest gold/exp per minute even though I try my hardest to get last hits and kill people.

To play a carry you have to ignore your team's cries of help and leave it to a support to keep farming. You shouldn't leave your lane unless you really need to, you're getting no farm, or the enemy is attempting a gank on you (and you have to really be sure). Your team will thank you later after you actually have farm to carry them. Also if you build a HotD take a Khan/Wildkin/Troll Warlord and stack ancients while you farm other lanes.

To play a carry you have to ignore your team's cries of help and leave it to a support to keep farming. You shouldn't leave your lane unless you really need to, you're getting to farm, or the enemy is attempting a gank on you (and you have to really be sure). Your team will thank you later after you actually have farm to carry them. Also if you build a HotD take a Khan/Wildkin/Troll Warlord and stack ancients while you farm other lanes.

I tried stacking ancients with a HotD once, I kept forgetting when they spawned so I screwed it up a lot. when I did get it right once or twice it was amazing

I say stuff like that to fuck with people, I stopped because sometimes the joke backfires and some elitist disconnects after reading it.

If you're implying that I'm an elitist who disconnected right away, you couldn't be more wrong. I gave him and his 'personal Nightstalker bodyguard' a chance, but they were too disorganised and I just couldn't play with them. Even if the enemy Ursa and Chaos Knight disconnected, giving us a two man advantage.

he got mad and let me have it, i tried to first blood lich and failed, so i returned to where i belonged. i ended game with 400+ cs and a completely full build except for satanic, more kills and less deaths than anyone else in the game, and a p big number of assists too. meanwhile the whole game lion and bloodseeker were screaming GO BACK TO MID LUNA

her w seriously makes her a really good jungler, end of game i cleared hard camps in three hits, ancients in 5.

was farming great with furion and getting some ganks off, but the ogre magi on our team always kept blaming me for him dying to a 1v5 situation. do people not realise that furion is a GLOBAL presence and that i dont always have be with the team cause i can just tp if shit goes down. fuck people in this game are horrible

Played quite possibly the worst game ever. I randomed lycan, and then next our team picks ursa, then bloodseeker, then riki, then phantom assassin and i was on the verge of repicking but then i decided not to. We won in 13 minutes, by then i had power treads, vlads, and a rapier. So much fucking feeding by the other team.

Edited:

Also, i played another game as nightstalker as he was one of my very first heroes, and as soon as it became night time i proceeded to shit on the enemy team. Jesus christ he is so op.

Every time there is a team fight, I literally have no fucking clue what to do. I don't know who to focus as a carry, I don't know who to stun as an initiator, I don't know when to fall back and I don't know what to do as an support, because I die in like 2 seconds.

Strangely enough, this is like one biggest parts of the game, yet I can't find anything on that matter.

Also any tips on the mid game when you play carry? I always try to farm during that time, but my team always keeps engaging in team fights so I always have to TP in to get the expirience, but usually I can't do much.

Every time there is a team fight, I literally have no fucking clue what to do. I don't know who to focus as a carry, I don't know who to stun as an initiator, I don't know when to fall back and I don't know what to do as an support, because I die in like 2 seconds.

Strangely enough, this is like one biggest parts of the game, yet I can't find anything on that matter.

Also any tips on the mid game when you play carry? I always try to farm during that time, but my team always keeps engaging in team fights so I always have to TP in to get the expirience, but usually I can't do much.

Most carries are good at finishing off escaping enemies in teamfights. Try to stay alive until you see a weak enemy running away, then do your thang and shred 'em. Ultimate abilities are almost always indispensable in teamfights, so if you expect one, keep it off cooldown. Ultis like Void's Chronosphere, Venomancer's Poison Nova and Spectre's Haunt can turn the tide of a battle. For midgame, I reccommend trying to balance farming and being with your team. If your team is scattered, you probably can't do much to help so go farm. If they're all mid looking to push, join them.

Just think who can do the most OVER TIME, not who can mash their keyboard and then be useless for 10 seconds autoattacking until their stuff cools down. Focus that guy. Run when your team is obviously losing (3 of you are dead and they've yet to lose a guy- hint: RUN). Save your stuns for carries or channelers (enigma's ult, etc) or for chasing loose ends. Supports should sit back and heal who needs heals, repel/grave/teleport/whatever just stay out of the action and watch what's going on carefully.

If you're farm dependent and your team is doing stuff they can't pull off you need to tell them to chill out because you won't be able to do much without your items- just feed or get cheap kills anybody could have gotten without you there. If your team can manage not to fuck up then you'll steamroll with uninterrupted farm. Don't feel like you need to run around the map helping constantly but if there's a fight 5 feet away from you while you're farming and you can help- then help.

Who to stun:
1. Big channeled abilities (Enigma, Bane on your carry, Warlock upheaval un-interrupted wins fights)
2. Carries (They kill you unless you keep them in control)
3. People who keep their team alive (Chain-stunning Omni is worth it if 2 of the above are already dealth with, also DAZZUUUL.)

Who to focus:
1. Carries (They need to die as soon as possible, they're usually squishy too with some exeptions)
2. Supports (Supports usually lock people down or hinder their ability to do something, like Rylai's (CM) Slow or root for example)
3. Targets who deal their damage over fight (You may not realise it, but if you let Zeus, Lesh or Death prophet survive over the fight, they have done shitloads of damage to your team already.)

^The order of 2 and 3 are questionable, fully depending on the situation, for example their CM sucks horse dick and can't hit her nova but their Batrider survives the entire fight, better kill Batrider 1st.